by Ken Follett
EIGHT A.M.
7
Tony Cox stood in a phone booth on the corner of Quill Street, Bethnal Green, with the receiver to his ear. He was perspiring inside the warm coat with the velvet collar. In his hand he held the end of a chain, which was attached to the collar of the dog outside. The dog was sweating, too.
The phone at the other end of the line was answered, and Tony pressed a coin into the slot.
A voice said: "Yes?" in the tone of one who is not really accustomed to these newfangled telephones.
Tony spoke curtly. "It's today. Get it together." He hung up without giving his name or waiting for an answer.
He strode off along the narrow pavement, pulling the dog behind him. It was a pedigreed boxer with a trim, powerful body, and Tony had continually to yank at the chain to make it keep pace. The dog was strong, but its master was a great deal stronger.
The doors of the old terraced houses gave directly on to the street. Tony stopped at the one outside which was parked the gray Rolls-Royce. He pushed the house door open. It was never locked, for the occupants had no fear of thieves.
There was a smell of cooking in the little house. Pulling the dog behind him, Tony went into the kitchen and sat on a chair. He unhooked the chain from the dog's collar and sent it away with a hefty slap on the rump. He stood up and took off his coat.
A kettle was warming on the gas cooker, and there was sliced bacon on a piece of greaseproof paper. Tony opened a drawer and took out a kitchen knife with a ten-inch blade. He tested the ledge with his thumb, decided it needed sharpening, and went out into the yard.
There was an old grinding wheel in the lean-to shed. Tony sat beside it on a wooden stool and worked the treadle, the way he had seen the old man do it years ago. It made Tony feel good to do things the way his father had. He pictured him: a tall man, and handsome, with wavy hair and glittering eyes, making sparks with the grinder while his children shrieked with laughter. He had been a stallholder in a street market, selling china and saucepans, calling his wares in that strong, carrying voice. He used to make a performance of pretending to needle the grocer next to him, shouting: "There y'are, I just sold a pot for half a nicker. How many spuds d'you sell afore you take ten bob?" He could spot a strange woman yards away, and would use his good looks shamelessly. "I tell you what, darling"--this to a middle-aged woman in a hairnet--"we don't get many beautiful young girls down this end of the market, so I'm going to sell you this at a loss and hope you'll come back. Look at it--solid copper bottom, if you'll pardon the word, and it's my last one; I've made my profit on the rest, so you can have it for two quid, half what I paid for it, just because you made an old man's heart beat faster, and take it quick afore I change my mind."
Tony had been shocked by the speed at which the old man changed after the one lung went. His hair turned white, the cheeks sank between the bones, and the fine voice went high and whining. The stall was rightfully Tony's, but by then he had his own sources of income, so he had let it go to young Harry, his dumb brother, who had married a beautiful Whitechapel girl with the patience to learn how to talk with her hands. It took guts for a dumb man to run a market stall, writing on a blackboard when he needed to speak to the customers, and keeping in his pocket a plain postcard bearing the word THANKS in capital letters to flash when a sale was made. But he ran it well and Tony lent him the money to move into a proper shop and hire a manager, and he made a success of that, too. Guts--they ran in the family.
The kitchen knife was sharp enough. He tested it and cut his thumb. Holding it to his lips, he went into the kitchen.
His mother was there. Lillian Cox was short and a little overweight--her son had inherited the tendency to plumpness without the shortness--and she had much more energy than the average sixty-three-year-old. She said: "I'm doing you a bit of fried bread."
"Lovely." He put the knife down and found a bandage. "Take care with that knife--I done it a bit too sharp."
She fussed over his cut, then, making him hold it under the cold tap and count to one hundred, then putting on antiseptic cream, and gauze, and finally a roll of bandage held with a safety pin. He stood still and let her do what she wished.
She said: "Ah, but you're a good boy to sharpen the knives for me. Where you been so early, anyhow?"
"Took the dog up the park. And I had to ring someone up."
She made a disgusted noise. "I don't know what's wrong with the phone in the parlor, I'm sure."
He leaned over the cooker to sniff the frying bacon. "You know how it is, Mum. The Old Bill listen to that one."
She put a teapot in his hand. "Go in there and pour the tea out, then."
He took the pot into the living room and put it down on a mat. The square table was laid with an embroidered cloth, cutlery for two, salt and pepper and sauce bottles.
Tony sat nearest the fireplace, where the old man used to sit. From there he reached into the sideboard and took out two cups and two saucers. He pictured the old man again, overseeing mealtimes with the back of his hand and a good deal of rhyming slang. "Get your chalks off the Cain," he would bark if they put their arms on the table. The only thing Tony held against him was the way he treated Mum. Being so handsome and that, he had a few women on the side, and at times he would spend his money buying them gin instead of bringing it home. Those times, Tony and his brother would go up the Smithfield market, stealing scraps from under the tables to sell to the soap factory for a few coppers. And he never went in the Army--but then, a lot of wise boys went on the trot in wartime.
"What are you going to do--go back to sleep, or pour that tea out?" Lillian put a plate in front of Tony and sat down opposite him. "Never mind, I'll do it now."
Tony picked up his cutlery, holding his knife like a pencil, and began to eat. There were sausages, two fried eggs, a mess of canned tomatoes, and several slices of fried bread. He took a mouthful before reaching for the brown sauce. He was hungry after his morning's exertions.
His mother passed him his tea. She said: "I don't know. We was never afraid to use the phone when your father was alive, God rest his soul. He was careful to stay out of the way of the Old Bill."
Tony thought they had had no phone in his father's day, but he let that pass. He said: "Yeah. He was so careful, he died a pauper."
"But an honest one."
"Was he?"
"You know bloody well he was, and never let me hear you say no different."
"I don't like you to swear, Mum."
"You shouldn't provoke me."
Tony ate silently and finished quickly. He emptied his teacup and began to unwrap a cigar.
His mother picked up his cup. "More tea?"
He looked at his watch. "No, thanks. I've got a couple of things to do." He set fire to the cigar and stood up. "That's set me up lovely, that breakfast."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you having a tickle?"
This annoyed him. He blew smoke into the air. "Who needs to know?"
"It's your life. Go on, then. I'll see you later. Mind you look after yourself."
He looked at her a moment longer. Although she gave in to him, she was a strong woman. She had led the family since the old man went: mending marriages, borrowing from one son to lend to another, giving advice, using her disapproval as a powerful sanction. She had resisted all efforts to move her from Quill Street to a nice little bungalow in Bournemouth, suspecting--rightly--that the old house and its memories were a potent symbol of her authority. Once, there had been queenly arrogance in her high-bridged nose and pointed chin; now, she was regal but resigned, like an abdicated monarch, knowing she was wise to release the reins of power, but regretting it all the same. Tony realized that this was why she needed him: he was king now, and having him to live with her kept her close to the throne. He loved her for needing him. No one else needed him.
She stood up. "Well, are you going?"
"Yes." He realized he had been lost in thought. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed briefly. He never kis
sed her. "Ta-ta, Mum." He picked up his coat, patted the dog, and went out.
The interior of the Rolls was hot. He pressed the button that lowered the window before settling himself in the leather seat and pulling away.
He took pleasure in the car as he threaded it through the narrow East End streets. Its shameless luxury, in contrast with the mean streets and undignified old houses, told the story of Tony Cox's life. People looked at the car--housewives, paperboys, workingmen, villains--and said to each other: "There's Tony Cox. He did well."
He flicked cigar ash through the open window. He had done well. He had bought his first car for six pounds when he was sixteen years old. The blank Ministry of Transport certificate had cost him thirty shillings on the black market. He filled in the blanks and resold the car for eighty pounds.
Before long he had a used car lot, which he gradually turned into a legitimate business. Then he sold it, with the stock, for five thousand pounds, and went into the long-firm racket.
He used the five thousand to open a bank account, giving as a reference the name of the man who had bought the car lot. He told the bank manager his real name, but gave a false address--the same false address he had given the purchaser of the car business.
He took a lease on a warehouse, paying three months' rent in advance. He bought small quantities of radio, television, and hi-fi equipment from manufacturers and resold it to shops in London. He paid suppliers on the dot, and his bank account was busy. Within a couple of months he was making a small loss, and had a reputation for credit-worthiness.
At that point he made a series of very large orders. Small manufacturers to whom he had promptly paid a couple of bills of five hundred pounds each were glad to supply him with three or four thousand pounds' worth of goods on the same credit terms: he looked like he was becoming a good customer.
With a warehouse full of expensive electronic gadgetry for which he had paid nothing, he held a sale. Record players, color television sets, digital clocks, tape decks, amplifiers, and radios went for knockdown prices, sometimes as little as half their retail value. In two days the warehouse was empty and Tony Cox had three thousand pounds in cash in two suitcases. He locked the warehouse and went home.
He shivered in the front seat of the warm car as he remembered. He would never take risks like those again. Suppose one of the suppliers had got wind of the sale? Suppose the bank manager had seen Tony in a pub a few days later?
He still did the occasional long firm, but these days he used front men, who took long holidays in Spain as soon as the ax fell. And nobody saw Tony's face.
However, his business interests had diversified. He owned property in Central London, which he let to young ladies at extremely high rents; he ran nightclubs; he even managed a couple of pop groups. Some of his projects were legitimate, some criminal; some were a mixture, and others were on the nebulous borderline between the two, where the law is unsure of itself but respectable businessmen with reputations to worry about fear to tread.
The Old Bill knew about him, of course. There were so many grasses about nowadays that nobody could become a respected villain without his name going into a file at Scotland Yard. But getting evidence was the problem, especially with a few detectives around who were prepared to warn Tony in advance of a raid. The money he spent in that direction was never skimped. Every August there were three or four police families in Benidorm on Tony's money.
Not that he trusted them. They were useful, but they were all telling themselves that one day they would repay their debt of loyalty by turning him in. A bent copper was still, ultimately, a copper. So all transactions were cash; no books were kept, except in Tony's head; all jobs were done by his cronies on verbal instructions.
Increasingly, he played even safer by simply acting as a banker. A draftsman would get some inside information and dream up a plan; then he would recruit a villain to organize the equipment and manpower. The two of them would then come to Tony and tell him the plan. If he liked it, he would lend them the money for bribes, guns, motorcars, explosives, and anything else they needed. When they had done the job they would repay the loan five or six times over out of the proceeds.
Today's job was not so simple. He was draftsman as well as banker for this one. It meant he had to be extra careful.
He stopped the car in a backstreet and got out. Here the houses were larger--they had been built for foremen and craftsmen rather than dockers and laborers--but they were no more sound than the hovels of Quill Street. The concrete facings were cracking, the wooden window frames were rotten, and the front gardens were smaller than the trunk of Tony's car. Only about half of them were lived in: the rest were warehouses, offices, or shops.
The door Tony knocked on bore the sign BILLIARDS AND SNOOKER with most of the AND missing. It was opened immediately and he stepped inside.
He shook hands with Walter Burden, then followed him upstairs. A road accident had left Walter with a limp and a stammer, depriving him of his job as a docker. Tony had given him the managership of the billiards hall, knowing that the gesture--which cost Tony nothing--would be rewarded by increased respect among East Enders and undying loyalty on Walter's part.
Walter said: "Want a cup of tea, Tony?"
"No, thanks, Walter. I just had my breakfast." He looked around the first-floor hall with a proprietorial air. The tables were covered, the linoleum floor swept, the cues racked neatly. "You keep the place nice."
"Only doing my job, Tone. You looked after me, see."
"Yeah." Cox went to the window and looked down on the street. A blue Morris 1100 was parked a few yards away on the opposite side of the road. There were two people in it. Tony felt curiously satisfied: he had been right to take precaution. "Where's the phone, Walter?"
"In the office." Walter opened a door, ushered Tony in, and closed it, staying outside.
The office was tidy and clean. Tony sat at the desk and dialed a number.
A voice said: "Yeah?"
"Pick me up," Tony said.
"Five minutes."
Tony hung up. His cigar had gone out. When things made him nervous, he let his smoke go out. He relit it with a gold Dunhill, then went out.
He showed himself at the window again. "All right, mate, I'm off," he said to Walter. "If one of the young detective-constables in the blue car takes it into his head to knock on the door, don't answer it. I'll be about half an hour."
"Don't w-worry. You can rely on me, you know that." Walter nodded his head like a bird.
"Yeah, I know." Tony touched the old man's shoulder briefly, then went to the back of the hall. He opened the door and trotted rapidly down the fire escape.
He picked his way around a rusting baby carriage, a sodden mattress, and three-fifths of an old car. Weeds sprouted stubbornly in the cracked concrete of the yard. A grubby cat scampered out of his way. His Italian shoes got dirty.
A gate led from the yard to a narrow lane. Tony walked to the end of the lane. As he got there, a small red Fiat with three men in it drew up at the curb. Tony got in and sat in the empty seat in the back. The car pulled away immediately.
The driver was Jacko, Tony's first lieutenant. Beside Jacko was Deaf Willie, who knew more about explosives now than he had twenty years ago when he lost his left eardrum. In the back with Tony was Peter "Jesse" James, whose two obsessions were firearms and girls with fat bottoms. They were good men, all permanent members of Tony's firm.
Tony said: "How's the boy, Willie?"
Deaf Willie turned his good ear toward Tony. "What?"
"I said, how's young Billy?"
"Eighteen today," Willie said. "He's the same, Tone. He'll never be able to look after hisself. The social worker told us to think about putting him in a home."
Tony tutted sympathetically. He went out of his way to be kind to Deaf Willie's half-witted son; mental illness frightened him. "You don't want to do that."
Willie said: "I said to the wife, what does a social worker know? This one's a g
irl of about twenty. Been to college. Still, she don't push herself."
Jacko broke in impatiently. "We're all set, Tony. The lads are there, the motors are ready."
"Good." Tony looked at Jesse James. "Shooters?"
"Got a couple of shotguns and an Uzi."
"A what?"
Jesse grinned proudly. "It's a nine-millimeter machine pistol. Israeli."
"Stroll on," Tony muttered.
Jacko said: "Here we are."
Tony took a cloth cap from his pocket and fixed it on his head. "You've put the lads indoors, have you?"
"Yes," Jacko said.
"I don't mind them knowing it's a Tony Cox job, but I don't want them to be able to say they saw me."
"I know."
The car pulled into a scrap yard. It was a remarkably tidy yard. The shells of cars were piled three high in orderly lines, and component parts were stacked neatly round about: pillars of tires, a pyramid of rear axles, a cube of cylinder blocks.
Near the gateway were a crane and a long car transporter. Farther in, a plain blue Ford van with double rear wheels stood next to the yard's heavy-duty oxyacetylene cutting gear.
The car stopped and Tony got out. He was pleased. He liked things neat. The other three stood around, waiting for him to do something. Jacko lit a cigarette.
Tony said: "Did you fix the owner of the yard?"
Jacko nodded. "He made sure the crane, the transporter, and the cutting gear were here. But he doesn't know what they're for, and we've tied him up, just for the sake of appearances." He started to cough.
Tony took the cigarette out of Jacko's mouth and dropped it in the mud. "Those things make you cough," he said. He took a cigar from his pocket. "Smoke this and die old."
Tony walked back toward the yard gate. The three men followed. Tony trod gingerly around potholes and swampy patches, past a stack of thousands of lead-acid accumulators, between mounds of drive shafts and gearboxes, to the crane. It was a smallish model, on caterpillar tracks, capable of lifting a car, a van, or a light truck. He unbuttoned his overcoat and climbed the ladder to the high cab.
He sat in the operator's seat. The all-round windows enabled him to see the whole of the yard. It was triangular in plan. One side was a railway viaduct, its brick arches filled in by storerooms. A high wall on the adjacent side separated the yard from a playground and a bomb site. The road ran along the front of the yard, curving slightly as it followed the bend of the river a few yards beyond. It was a wide road, but little used.